Making Spelling Every Teacher’s Responsibility

MTest results indicated that spelling was an area our students needed to make significant improvement in. As a faculty, we recognized that a renewed spelling focus in language arts would not be enough; spelling had to become a school-wide goal.

The Problem:

“… teachers often struggle to help students understand the difference between shortcuts in notes between friends or in chat room conversations and language that is appropriate for written tests, papers, and other school assignments. Additionally, today’s teens often seem to believe that they only need to use “formal language” and correct spelling on language arts or English papers. After all, aren’t other teachers responsible only for the stuff like history, math, or science?

The Solution:

After consideration, we adopted the Rebecca Sitton Spelling Sourcebook K-8 Series as our school-wide model. Now every language arts classroom has spelling books, and every classroom sports a poster containing the 100 word most commonly misspelled words by middle/junior high school students. Those words have become our entire school’s “no excuse” list. Every teacher expects students to correctly spell those words in written assignments.